Creating Effective Tribal Telecenters and Community Networks
                                                          http://lone-eagles.com/telecenters.htm
      

  A Prospectus of Joint Creative Opportunities
  Written by Request for
             Alan Gotcher,   http://teltecglobal.com
             Fletcher Brown,  http://tamsco.webex.com
             Alicia Jansen, Compaq Native Initiative
             Red Boucher,   Alaskan Wireless

by Frank Odasz  frank@lone-eagles.com
     Lone Eagle Consulting

Dear Alan and friends,

You'd asked for 10 specific suggestions on what we might do together regarding creating Native American, rural, and international telecenters which can truly deliver measureable high-end empowerment within a short 'fast track' time frame.

If we're talking about a physical resource center only, my suggestion would be to emphasize availability of loaner digital cameras, digital art tablets, laptops, and MIDI musical equipment, so community members can experience 'in the home' use of these motivating expressive technologies. The challenge would be how to motivate as many as possible to become digital authors in the short term and to help them self-publish on the web, perhaps initially on an intranet, only.

But, I don't think we're really talking about a physical center only, as much as we are talking about a 'citizen engagement program' to quick-start adoption of the use of multiple technologies for learning, self-expression and collaboration. Behavioral change typically takes years of time and barriers include anti-technology and anti-literacy attitudes as well as a lack of self-confidence in the face of technology.

I do believe, however, that it is indeed possible to present a community engagement program so compelling that this adoption process can be dramatically accelerated. The fact that it has never been done, does not mean it can't be done. The difference has to begin with establishing a bottom-up shared vision and visible community buy-in, in contrast to the appearance of a top-down implementation. I.E. "Value-Pull, Not Tech-Push."

Two quick definitions: 1. A telecenter is a face-to-face computer lab training environment providing a hands-on showcase for as wide an array of equipment and capabilities as budgets will allow. 2. A community network is the demonstrated applications of how people use Internet capabilities and tools to support one another.

Below I will sketch ten tangible "things we could do together first" in general terms since I don't have budget or population figures, to allow me to become more specific regarding scope and scale. I've also included a short essay articulating key relevant themes.

1.    Create and maintain a master listing of the top relevant Native Internet projects,
        unique examples of Native Web applications, and a hotlist of the best related resources,
        either as a free online offering, or as a paid web site and newsletter subscription service.

A publically accessible clearinghouse on your corporate or project website could clearly establish your ongoing leadership in this rapidly evolving new field of delivering true measureable Internet empowerment in partnership with tribal communities.

A draft listing of major Native Internet projects is at  http://lone-eagles.com/adec.htm  along with a key essay detailing the challenges for Native communities "Echoes in the Electronic Wind." See also the new draft listing of unique examples of how Native Americans are already using the web "Examples of Native American Web Cultural Applications" at http://lone-eagles.com/expressions.htm

There are multiple projects planning multimedia distance learning trials using Tachyon and other high speed two-way satellite dishes. There are multiple Native projects planning some level of 'community engagement program' as well as 'motivational teacher training.' There are many web-based tribal initiatives and innovations to link to as inspirational exemplars.

Recommendation: I suggest you consider contracting for a portion of my time to build on my extensive existing work, to build a knowledge base from which your company or project can benefit from the lessons learned by other related projects. This resource could be free to all, or we could jointly create a subscription web site and monthly newsletter for communities, corporations, foundations and other entities working on empowering people in what are termed 'digital divide communities.'

Note: Steve Cisler created a database of International community networks for Tachyon, which no longer posts it. Perhaps this could be updated and become a resource for Teltecglobal. Cisler@pobox.com

A quick thought: Creating Telecenters and "Community Technology Centers" may be the current trend,  but you might think about your real mission as being creation and demonstration of:

'Fast-track Cross-cultural Empowerment Training Curriculum, Community Engagement Programs, and Evaluative Metrics."

2.     Begin Your Community Training Project with a Public "Visioning" Presentation
        Establishing a Core Shared Vision and Visible Buy-in.

"Why should I care?" and "What's in this for me?" are two questions likely to be in the minds of the typical project participants.  What will I receive in benefits, or equipment? What's the best that could come of this project, and what are they going to ask of me in return? It is essential to establish motivation by demonstrating what's possible and how others are already benefiting in very specific, replicable ways.

If the assumption exists that the project sponsor is donating equipment and access, then polite receipt of these gifts and polite seat-time at required meetings may constitute their view of their level of required commitment.

If there's a greater vision that appeals to Native cultural roots, it needs to be made the core of the upcoming project goals. I'd begin with a public presentation relating that the need exists for widespread direct tribal participation evaluating the best culturally appropriate uses of multiple technologies with the caveat that their direct participation in the use of these technologies, or the lack thereof, will mark the success or failure of the project. The reality is that most Internet projects flounder when it comes to putting Internet access to good use due to lack of community understanding as to what is possible. (A draft guide for establishing a realistic vision is at http://lone-eagles.com/empowerment.htm, with a separate hands-on, how-to guide at http://lone-eagles.com/nativeguide.htm   )

This approach puts the tribal community in a position of assessment of the present project's gifts, and in possession of potential global impact on all indigenous persons. Such a session would end with a sign-up sheet committing to some specific, but not overwhelming, level of participation, perhaps a series of 3-6 workshops, or a training sequence with a combination of Face-to-face and online activities. I.E. A show of unity.

One strategy I'd recommend would be to jointly write the press release the community would most like to send to the media after the three month community assessment project, as a way to being specific about what is to be accomplished.

The key to success is beginning with everyone knowing what the projected success story will read like. I.E. Tribal community rallies to assess Internet tools as advanced scouts on behalf of indigenous peoples worldwide! A quantified required contribution of time and effort by individuals in return for specific community benefits and subtle social recognition for individuals is recommended.

3.    Establish a Visible Public Methodology for Showcasing Successful Skills Transfer:

1. Showcase who has gained which new skills and

2. Who is willing to mentor others in learning those same skills.

3. Present the training as a "Train-the-trainers" program where in return for perhaps X hours of training, each trainee will commit to offering X hours of online and face-to-face training.

In my Native American Self-directed Learner's Internet Guide ( http://lone-eagles.com/nativeguide.htm   )  the three most empowering skill sets are given along with hands-on activities, supplemented by my two online courses for educators, readily adaptable for tribal citizens. Articulating a three month 'community quick start' pilot program which allows as many citizens as possible to contribute in some way to the success of the entire community would be recommended, with public recognition for those who learn and share with others what they have learned. A fun, social, learning format would focus on the most motivating new skills, digital photography, art and music, with emphasis on routinely creating new content to share online with the community, about the community.

Such a citizen engagement program would have two tiers of participants. One would be the advanced scouts (likely to be the most motivated youth) who would be supported to learn at any speed they like. This allows HP to demonstrate how to rapidly create local expertise. The second tier would be normal citizens who work to raise the percentage of the entire community regarding progress on an easy-to-understand empowerment matrix;

I.E. Like the United Way fundraising thermometer, visible progress would be displayed on how many citizens 1. Have and use email, 2. Have and use searching skills, 3. Have and use basic web-authoring to share resources they find to benefit the community, 4. crafts, art and products to sell, etc.

A Two-tier approach
Individuals can ideally learn as fast as they want, to scout the frontier, and to become local mentors, while groups can more slowly explore the collaborative potential and community-wide adoption of new skills. An online public means of monitoring the sequence and progress of both groups is essential.

A Brief Sketch of the Training/Assessment Program

Designed as a way for tribal members to show their support for the tribal community, participating members would first attend a presentation on the possibilities and examples of successes from other tribes. ( A Web Tour of Native American Web Innovations: http://lone-eagles.com/expressions.htm and an Alaska Native version http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan.htm )

For Example: Demonstration of successive empowering learnable skills would define a prescribed "learning pathway to empowerment." Email skills would include how to send digital family photos as well as audio and video files. Each participating member would learn simple searching and cut-and-paste skills to post such links, text and images on their own web page as resources to share with the tribe. Learning the easiest and most powerful web tools would be a priority.

Each participating member would learn to noodle around with a digital art tablet and would create a personal icon that would be emailed and reposted on others' web pages as a public display of shared trust and mentorship commitment. Each web page would display in some way the skills of the owner and particularly what skills they are willing to share/mentor with others, either face-to-face or online. Family learning activities which quickly produce a sharable product would be immediately self-reinforcing and motivating.

Note: Many skills don't need to be learned by everyone, such as creating composite images or advanced web page features, so a barter economy focused on local niche expertise becomes immediately viable. Also, skill sets such as knowing how to create a digital music sound file and posting it on a web page make better sense to be at least initially represented by someone who has achieved high levels of skill. This creates a role for multiple skills sets among multiple persons, easing the learning overhead of the entire village, while creating motivated local specialists for the higher tiers of skills in digital photography, art, video, and music. The social recognition is intended to motivate generous sharing of skills in the short term. The end goal being to help as many self-publish as possible within the short timeframe…as a stated tribal goal of this quick-start demonstration project. Sounds fun?! That's the idea.

Imagine a community event where…

Imagine a community event including the HP villages with a barrel of wooden beads in the center. Everyone would wear a string around their neck representing their 'inner circle' strung with beads with the names of those they have committed to mentor, or be mentored by. Some would have very many beads, showing their generosity, and those with few beads would perhaps show they could use more support from others. Perhaps colored beads would show support of persons in other tribes. Refinement needed, but you get the idea. The potential scalability of the social impact of one person via Internet needs public display to be communicated to the community. This idea represents a physical face-to-face method of social recognition as to who is sharing knowledge. The web icons method described above would provide an ongoing, online method with the same purpose of recognizing contributions to community learning.

4.    Create a Series of Community Learning Events, and elevate the importance
          of online learning as a means of protecting indigenous peoples locally and globally

An implementation model for local youth leadership "raising community Internet awareness" was written Spring 2001 for eight Native Alaskan Villages;  http://lone-eagles.com/bartsgrant.htm   Of particular importance are the multiple one day youth-driven community Internet awareness activities where food would also be served as fun, social, learning events. Face-to-face family events are an essential cultural requirement. Multiple events detailed at  http://lone-eagles.com/academy.htm

Examples of sharing cultural knowledge and skills online are needed to demonstrate that online sharing is one of the most powerful features of the Internet; anywhere, anytime learning. Everyone can now be both learner and teacher, both consumer and producer, all the time, locally as well as globally!  A family emphasis would be required, combining the wisdom of the elders with the energy and technical skills of the youth. Youth today are the technology leaders and key technology change agents in all cultures.

The Culture Club concept paper, http://lone-eagles.com/cultureclub.htm    details a project model where youth from multiple cultures would prove the viability of online teaching and learning, youth to youth, across cultural boundries. (Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian, Native American, Hispanic migrants, etc.) This sets the stage for local online peer mentoring programs as well as entrepreneurial opportunities for offering online distance learning and mentoring services worldwide.

Create a MIRA community workshop model for Native Americans.

During 1999-2000, I served as a rural community trainer and presenter for Kelloggs MIRA project (Managing information in Rural America.) A detailed description is below. I would combine the events detailed in my "Bootstrap Academy"     http://lone-eagles.com/academy.htm   with what I've learned from MIRA (detailed at  http://lone-eagles.com/miramodel.htm )
as I've already begun with an implementation grant plan for eight Alaska Native Villages   http://lone-eagles.com/bartsgrant.htm

5.    Establish a Model for Team-based Application-specific Short-term
       Demonstration Projects.

One of the challenges is there are so many new telephonies with potential that it is overwhelming for all concerned. I suggest creating a brokering service to match up motivated tribal teams with corporations seeking validation of the empowerment potential of their products in a short term (3 month) model venue. This would dramatically increase the number of equipment donations by, and visibility for, many corporations, and foundations, already interested in 'digital divide' issues. The compiled evaluations would begin a valuable and growing resource.

Next spring could be a time to host a unique type of conference where these teams would showcase their assessment results to share their own experience, positive and negative, on a wide range of technologies. I envision multiple booths with large screen displays, and summative explanation posters with URLS to online tutorials and tribal reports, where attendees could informally walk around to see simultaneously multiple technologies displayed and being demonstrated. There's a need for a new format of conference with a more Native cultural format.

6.    Hold a Tribal "Web Content for Community-building" Competition:

Thinkquest is an international competition for youth to create instructional web pages in teams of three, often involving youth from different countries who have never met. A competition would be a great way of recognizing those tribes, or teams, who have created exemplary online cultural models with emphasis on teaching others. Cyberfair is an K12 international competition where kids create web pages to celebrate local leaders, history, and similar local information. You can see Native American and Alaska Native Thinkquest and Cyberfair WINNERS at http://lone-eagles.com/alaskan.htm Webquests are project-based learning activities that can be created from web-based templates.

I detail how the best of all three can be integrated: http://lone-eagles.com/capacity.htm

7.    Adapt Two Existing Online Courses for Tribal Community Learning Use.

Mini-course 1:
Internet Self-empowerment - Becoming a Self-directed Learner
http://lone-eagles.com/eagle1.htm
Successive hands-on experiences are simply presented to quickly
build the skills for using search engines, free web tools, and the
Internet to learn anything from anywhere at any time.

Mini-course 2:
Empowering Others through Internet Mentorship
http://lone-eagles.com/eagle2.htm
Learn to help build the learning capacity of your community
through successive hands-on experiences using Internet collaborative
tools and instructional authoring tools for citizen-to-citizen instruction,
and mentorship.

Mini-course 3:
Easy Internet Ecommerce for Beginners
http://lone-eagles.com/eagle3.htm
Successive hands-on experiences are simply presented to quickly
build skills and concepts using free Ecommerce tools, services, and
resources, with emphasis on identification of existing successful models
that are the most easily replicated, such as Ebay auctions.

NOTE: Extensive additional resources for "Building Cultural Learning Communities"  http://lone-eagles.com/teled.htm  

8.     Create An Online Peer Mentoring Program ...
          with the intent to evolve a brokerage service for marketing the online instructional
          and mentoring services of the initial participants for our community empowerment programs.
        Do Good and Do Well…in partnership with those you train.

It is inevitable that since everyone can become a producer of web-based content that businesses will soon appear offering marketing, productizing and microcredit services to citizen producers of content in a brokerage cooperative format.

Many corporations may wish to do good, but the perception is that the "do well" part applies to big corporation bottom lines in the old business model instead of the new model of co-opetition and partnership with citizens as producers.

It would not be expensive or difficult to create a short term pilot project demonstrating the value of peer mentors for indigenous learners. The inevitable motivation that would result from helping people earn, from learning to help people online, would demonstrate the beginnings of creating a true knowledge economy. An article expanding on this is at http://lone-eagles.com/mining.htm

See also: Lone Eagles Learn to Teach From Any Beach!
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/eagle.htm
Learning to teach online; anyone, anywhere, anytime.

9.   Create a "Native American Community Internet Empowerment Guide."

Consider my current Native American Self-directed Learner's Internet Guide  http://lone-eagles.com/nativeguide.htm    as a beta version, only. Consider contracting for a portion of my time to consolidate my writings and collected links to create a unique guide combining background vision essays, with recommended detailed implementation strategies, links to model Native web-based innovations and online learning modules with a cultural emphasis.  This would be very different from my hands-on guide referenced above, and the two would complement each other. This new one would establish the vision motivation, while the other develops the hands-on skills. Below is draft "Native American Community Internet Empowerment Guide" also posted at http://lone-eagles.com/empowerment.htm

NOTE: During 1999-2000, for Texas, I created a similar 11 Chapter guide:
"The Good Neighbor's Guide to Community Networking"
http://lone-eagles.com/cnguide.htm
This guide would complement the above two guides.

 

A Native American Community Internet Empowerment Guide

        by Frank Odasz, frank@lone-eagles.com
             Lone Eagle Consulting  http://lone-eagles.com

It will be what you do, or don't do, with your Internet access that will determine your level of empowerment!

The following essays raise the hard questions   which too few are asking and are based on over 15 years of extensive field experience with rural, remote and indigenous learners. The initial Vision essays will help you establish a realistic vision and prepares you for asking the hard questions that will ultimately determine the difference between success and failure. Then, you'll find detailed implementation plans, followed by detailed self-directed hands-on training materials, and grantwriting tutorials complete with grant templates, and funding sources. Extensive training resources and listings of outstanding Native American web-based innovations are given through out these writings which you're invited to share without restriction.

If you're ready for implementation,   jump to http://lone-eagles.com/telecenters.htm    and the implementation section below. If you have Internet access, and the vision, and the will, you'll find here nearly everything you need for creating your own Quick-start community empowerment program at no cost.

The services of Lone Eagle Consulting    are optional, but are guaranteed to accelerate your progress through on-site motivational presentations, expert online teaching and moderation of online discussions, and keeping you current on similar projects, new resources, and the opportunity for additional partners and sponsors for your community Internet project.

Establishing a Realistic Vision

                Preface: Culturally Appropriate Community Building using
                               Internet Tools - Issues, Risks, and Opportunities
                                       http://lone-eagles.com/learning_relationships.htm

Echoes in the Electronic Wind
http://www.turtletrack.org/Issues01/Co06022001/CO_06022001_Echoes.htm
Native Americans value community-building and may be the first to demonstrate how web-based tools can empower communities through gathering and sharing knowledge collaboratively.

Making the Missing Connections… A Wake-up Call
Regarding True Community Internet Empowerment
http://lone-eagles.com/wake-up-call.htm

Lessons Learned from a Decade of Grassroots Online Innovation
http://lone-eagles.com/lessons-learned.htm

The Future of Community Development -
Make the Living You Want Living Wherever You Want
http://lone-eagles.com/comdev.htm

An Update on the major Native Internet Projects
http://lone-eagles.com/adec.htm

Key Issues in Realizing Tribal Benefits from Internet Infrastructure
http://lone-eagles.com/triballeadership.htm

An Executive Overview for Project Planners
on the Hard Questions for Community Internet Empowerment
http://lone-eagles.com/overview.htm

Beyond Traditional Vocational Education:
Best Practices for Use of Computers and Internet for Native Communities
http://lone-eagles.com/indian-voc-ed.htm
Suggestions from a two-day meeting on Indian Vocational Education.

Examples of Native American Web Cultural Applications
http://lone-eagles.com/expressions.htm
Many outstanding examples of Native American innovation.

Tales from the Frontier of Internet Empowerment
http://lone-eagles.com/newyears98.htm
A short snapshot of the level of awareness of what Internet empowerment
possibilities were prior to 1998. Many points still more than relevant today.

The New Gold Rush;
Mining Raw Human Potential using Free Web Tools
http://lone-eagles.com/mining.htm

Community Networking primer
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/networking.htm
A good first article on community networks.

Building Learning Communities through Community Technology Centers
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/build.htm
An introduction to Internet self-empowerment opportunities!

Lone Eagles Learn to Teach From Any Beach!
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/eagle.htm
Learning to teach online; anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Published Nov. '99 in the T.H.E. Journal http://www.thejournal.com

The Good Neighbor's Guide to Community Networking
http://lone-eagles.com/cnguide.htm
Eleven easy-reading chapters including lessons learned and a bibliography of resources.

Implementation Models and Sample Grants

Preface: New Partnerships for Successful Community Capacity-building
              http://lone-eagles.com/partnerships.htm

Bringing Ideas Into Being
http://lone-eagles.com/ideas.htm
The "collective will" of the tribe must be ready.

Creating Effective Tribal Telecenters and Community Networks
http://lone-eagles.com/telecenters.htm
A prospectus for those interested in creating effective Tribal Telecenters, Community Technology Centers, and Community Networks in partnership with Lone Eagle Consulting.

Alaskan Native Youth Cultural Community Building
http://lone-eagles.com/bartsgrant.htm
A grant proposal written for eight Alaskan Native Villages

Culture Club: A Youth-based Cultural and Community Survival Strategy
http://lone-eagles.com/cultureclub.htm
Community content and self-publishing to address the global need for culturally appropriate Internet training visions and resources. Includes a Lone Eagles Apprenticeship Ecommerce program.
See also http://lone-eagles.com/capacity.htm
and http://lone-eagles.com/trainers.htm

Seventh Generation Community Initiative
http://lone-eagles.com/7gc.htm
A Model for Native American Sovereignty

The Community Bootstrap Initiative "Doing for Ourselves- Together"
http://lone-eagles.com/articles/boot2.htm
A full USDA proposal model for Dillon, Montana

Kellogg's Managing Information for Rural America (MIRA) Model
http://lone-eagles.com/miramodel.htm
An assessment of a two-year project funded by the Kellogg Foundation

Internet Training Resources

                           Echoes in the Electronic Wind:
                    A Native American Cross-cultural Internet Guide
                    http://lone-eagles.com/nativeguide.htm
                    A self-directed learner's hands-on guide with emphasis on pointing to the
                    best online tutorials, and educational resources, on the Internet. An online
                    course for educators uses this guide.

"Building Cultural Learning Communities" Resources
http://lone-eagles.com/teled.htm

Grant-writing Tips and Funding Sources

Community Network Funding Sources and Grantwriting Tips
http://lone-eagles.com/granthelp.htm
Specifically for rural community development.

A Simple Proposal-writing Tutorial from the Kellogg MIRA project
http://lone-eagles.com/mira2.htm
Easy to follow and to use for your first grant proposal.

Creating a Community Self-help Internet Empowerment Model
http://lone-eagles.com/taosvisions.htm
A concept paper with many fundable ideas written for the Taos, NM Kellogg MIRA project participants.

A Grantwriting Lesson, including grant templates for Native Americans and rural communities
http://lone-eagles.com/asdnl8.htm
From the online course for educators "Making the Best Use of Internet for K12 Instruction"
http://lone-eagles.com/asdn1.htm 

 

10. Sponsor the consolidation and publishing of the best of all my work in a book
      and web site

Sponsor the refinement and publishing of my best work and knowledge, both online and offline, starting with my 1983 inception of the Big Sky Telegraph. A sample of the tone and format is at http://lone-eagles.com/newyears98.htm  
Tentative Book Title: Tales from the Electronic Frontier

Here's a short essay articulating key themes.

The authenticity of what combination of Internet Infrastructure, and skills training program models, will work best for Native American communities can only come from the direct participation by, and candid assessment by, Native Americans themselves. Such authenticity is invaluable to those infrastructure businesses, and government agencies, advocating the Internet as an effective citizen and community empowerment tool. The lack of identifiable models for community empowerment, after over ten years and hundreds of community networking projects, bears important lessons.

Its time for the top-down builders of these networks to partner with the bottom-up intended users in new and meaningful ways. It will ultimately be the authenticity of benefits proven by tribal members themselves that will prove what does and doesn't work. This knowledge is invaluable to corporations, government and those seeking answers to the digital divide challenges.

Empowerment comes first from the ability to access self-directed learning via relevant and timely information as needed and on a regular basis, then to be able to experience online communication, initially with family members, then to self-publish on the web your message and/or self-market your business or products globally at minimal expense. The highest level of empowerment comes from developing skills for close collaboration and co-development of ideas and action initiatives both locally and globally, the Internet allows for higher levels of coordination than has ever before been possible. One hidden truth is that the Internet can bring to one caring person's efforts a profound scalability of impact upon benefiting many, many others. 

However, these higher levels of coordination and empowerment have proved extremely elusive particularly when funding for training has not been included in the overall Internet empowerment plan. Such coordination requires both vision and diligence to make it happen, and this 'shared collaborative mutual empowerment vision' has been the most elusive component in the whole Internet empowerment arena. The potential for effective community networking and electronic democracy is very real, but the who, what and how are not obvious.

It is often presumed that given Internet access, such empowerment applications will be obvious and everyone will apply themselves directly to the task of realizing these projected benefits. The opposite has proven true. Without any specific commitment from specific persons as to who will learn and actively create and implement the specifics, very little happens as everyone expects this is someone else's responsibility, not theirs. Computer labs created with funding coming to one community organization often do not open up to the general community, citing limitations in staffing and technical maintenance. Assumptions regarding the processes for 'building learning communities' have proven to be disasterous. The trend has been focusing on training individuals to work as individuals, not on teaching how people can help each other in now and powerful ways to build sustainable communities.

Asking the Hard Questions

If a community fully understood what was possible to create for the community, how would they proceed? They'd sign up specific participants to gain specific skills and would keep the whole community continually informed as to who has learned what, and who can help others learn specific skills. Public ongoing community self-assessment is fundamentally necessary, and doable.

The need exists to jointly overcome the common fear of appearing to be showing off by learning and sharing new technology-related skills. In Japan there is a saying "The nail that sticks up gets hammered down." This attitudinal barrier is very real in Native American communities. Working together to fight information overload and meeting specific individual needs through efficient collaboration need to be understood as an accepted norm.

As web resources potentially helpful to the community are identified, they would be listed as summative rosters to aid others in quickly connecting to the best resources for local use. The best self-empowerment successes proven in other communities would be quickly shared and where appropriate, quickly adopted. Online town meetings and event calendars and easy access to rosters of local mentors by topic would likely be initial applications.

The opportunity exists to gather and share rapidly wisdom to meet the many needs. Getting as many people as possible directly involved in developing empowerment skills and in helping others would become a community priority.

The world's diverse cultures represent the human genome of
humankind's search for individual and group identity.

The immediate need exists to record for all time this invaluable shared story of humankind, and the cultural knowledge of our elders, while the opportunity still exists. We have limited time to prepare. Can we move to higher ground before the wave of change overwhelms us all?  Half the 6000 languages worldwide will be extinct in one lifetime.

Native American's are the first 1% of the world's indigenous peoples to have the opportunity, the honor, and the responsibility to be first to assess both the risks and the benefits to traditional cultures, both their own and then others, worldwide. Half the global population has never made a phone call, but most may receive high speed internet in our lifetime through new satellite and wireless technologies. Will they receive culturally appropriate instruction on both the risks and the benefits? If so, from whom, and how soon?

My hope is Native American's will take advantage of the powerful sharing and community-building opportunities to first empower themselves and then to inform and teach global cultures on the most culturally appropriate uses.

Today, we're hunters and gatherers of ideas and information that can sustain the tribe. Not so different than former generations. There's an immediate need for Native Scouting Parties and Virtual Circuit Riders.

Over the past 20 years, and more recently as Lone Eagle Consulting, I have found I can't lend my wings to others until they are ready. In many of my past attempts sharing my vision with corporations, foundations and government, I've met with that blank cow-eyed stare. I'm watching for those with the eagle eye glint that shows me 'they are ready.'

Premise: It will ultimately be the level of vision, will/motivation, and ability to take collaborative action that will determine the level of benefits of Internet access.

        Lone Eagle Consulting strives to maintain the small circle of the very best
Internet learning pathways, requiring the least time and effort, to deliver the
highest levels of benefit and motivation for people of all cultures and literacy
levels.